Attempt to improve breast feeders’ rights

Labour MP Steve Chadwick has drawn up legislation which will make it illegal to ask someone not to breastfeed.

The passage of this legislation could be quite interesting. Lets look at some of the other considerations that need to be taken into account, in particular the breast feedees rights.

You may be aware that some women should not breast feed. Their breast milk is so weak that when they are feeding, although they are producing sufficient quantity of milk, the quality of the milk is so low; they are effectively starving their child. This initially would be detected by a plunket nurse through failure to increase weight. If not, the baby’s condition will deteriorate to a semi comatose state through malnutrition. Yes this is a condition that even our own Star Ship hospital has seen.

If the State is going to take breast feeding into the legislative path other issues will need to be considered.

Firstly the quality of the breast milk. Should women have to past a breast milk quality test to ensure that the child is not abused by legal breast feeding in public.

Should women be certified to breast feed in public?
Look at the situation where you know that your partner should not be breast feeding but feeding formula, but just wants to be like her friends and feed in public.

Should there be a defence for a father to stop legal breast feeding in the interests of the child, or does he have to report this to cyps. ?

Should cyps have a register of women not authorised to provide breast milk to their baby.

In certain cases ie mothers known to be taking drugs or women inclined not to look after themselves who have border line results for breast milk quality have weekly tests for breast milk quality and drug contamination.

Should women who have drug contamination in their breast milk have their benefit reduced by the cost of formula and given formula vouchers to ensure the baby is feed.

If you are breast feeding in private the state has to rely on the integrity of the individuals involved. If you are breast feeding in public by law then the state has to take total responsibility for the wellbeing of the child.

15 Responses to “Attempt to improve breast feeders’ rights”

Yo, good joke but. What do you think the penalty would, could or should be for a woman who without permission feeds another womans child. This is what my ex did once to quieten down a friends child when she was babysiting. Her friend when she found out was horrified!

the questions you ask here are surely procedural divisions and if contracted holistically into the end definition of the Act, serve as a cross purpose of simplicity to legislation.

I am asking a question in this where my experience of separation through legislation is limited and cynical: which raises a point on the construction of NZ legislation if not that of other countries.

Let’s take the Care of Children Bill and your complaint before the Human Rights Commission. You complained that it interferred in the unfettered relationship between son and daughter with their biological parent. Yet this was difficult to see fromt he legislation as it had been crafted in carefully to work its way out of view.

In its former and original draft the wording came under heavy criticism from the opposition where the idea gave a woman rthe scope to call herself a “father”. This was met with outright ridicule in the House so was quickly recrafted. Yet the concept remained – it was just tweaked to make a different noise if ever it was squeezed. And you squeezed, ineffectively.

Still the point is that the words of legislation as that example proves hide
interpretations from the open scrutiny of the ordinary public and your questions that you ask are in the same field. It seems to me that you are attempting to infer the same kind of condition into this legislation that is built to marginalise (for example) fathers – yet are not clear that this is what you are challenging by your questions.

Surely the necessity is to be more direct if youa regoing to be succesful if you indeed wish to impact your challenge into any form. To do this you have to identify that there is some form of disparity in legislation by gender which thereby gives you the licence to provide examples – and these are of the nature you write when commenting on gender based legislation such as Steve Chadwick’s Bill.

For my part I am willing to disect the Bill once it is available in the library and if it does define discrimination that in some way is detrimental and directly unlawfully discriminatory am happy to focus this point onto your interest. Yet this would be me isolating the conditions of from a series of complaints that you for your interest are continually raising. And if you are correct you are doing this on behalf of men. Good on you.

As in regards to the necessity of the legislation if it is as simple for its intent as it appears without reading it, it is a condition already covered by the scope of the legislation against discrimination as confirmed under s.74 of the HRA. This suprises me then as it is clearly an issue that is being pursued by replicable legislative demand. So on the face of it even though the legislation sounds simple enough its necessity creates reason to be cautious. And given the atrocity and absolute inconsistentcy of the COC Bill ewith our ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of The Child and that this inconsistently is wickedly and deeply entrenched into teh legislation so that the ordinary public cannot identify with it as an abuse of obligation (and due process to boot) I concur with your suspicion.

Identify the problem without a question and if you want I will then put in a challenge, that it is unnecessary legislation and an over cook of the book.

you missed the point. I agree with you. I am saying, as are you, that the right to breastfeed in public is without question as it is already secured in other legislation. Bevan is alluding to a point, if in fact he is, that there is something unusual about its construction and necessity.

The Care of Children Bill is a prime example of legislation duping the public from what it really is. It is the “Woman’s Breeding Rights” bill (a much better name for it than COC) and has very little to do with children at all. It is all about women.

I am asking bevan if he believes that there is an agenda written into and under exposed in teh draft. I will research the bill when it becomes available for reading in the library – at that stage it can be challenged. If Bevan has identified that need accurately I can pursue it. As for the content IMO, with bare or bra it has as little consistent challengable public significance as say bear and bar.

1. This is giving a parent [mother] a right in law. That goes against Labour party policy that parents have no rights.

Why this is interesting is that if it becomes law – then it raises the whole issue of whether fathers have rights which should be recognised in law.

2. Will this Bill also make it illegal to ask a male to hold an infant to his bare chest to comfort the infant? Sure the child has a right to be so comforted by his/her father. If not – surely this bill can not be allowed to proceed sine it would be illegal under the Bill of rights and the UN charter of human rights against discrimination on gender.

Your wrong on points 1 and 2 and until you’ve got this accurate there is no point in exploring three.

Go to the Gurdianship Act s.15. Read about the word parent. Compare it to the word parent, then reconsider how you comprehend your first point.

If you calculate what I have said you will recognise that the policy if it is as you say has no legal ground. The if you were right you would have an advantagious status by which to challenge that policy. You would win.

Man – I can see how wired I am when making these fundamental mistakes in my writing on words. You are comparing the word parent with the word “guardian”. Sorry about that – otherwise the logic presented is accurate.

The Guardianship Act has been repealed [by Labour] and I think you know that.
It is Labour [and general leftist policy] that parents have no rights. This has been stated in parliament. Nothing in the now defunct Guardianship Act makes that statement untrue.
You say the policy has no legal ground. However if parents had rights, you would have a relationship with your children. In any case there are laws that have been implemented since Labour came to power which implement said policy. I’d go into it more but we are getting further away from the OP.

In a way we are getting away from the original post, but if you consider the origin and its relativity to why men could possibly want to complain, we are both in an area that has to be discussed by those like us if we are to compete against those who would covertly do us and children dammage.

If you note in another post, Stephen has abandoned the discussion where he feels I am being rude to him and this gives him the right and justification to mitigate from a collective need and responsibility to fix the problem. He feels he has made a move toward my comments and looked to justify from the components of what I say a collaborative union and together we will prosper. Where he is wrong. He hasn’t done anything of the sort. He has done as we males do – he has conditioned the circumstnaces to within the grounds of his own control. Just as has Scrap. Good luck they say, wounded and retired. Sad, is what I think. There are no men left. Those who think less of themselves and their needs and more of those they are bound for their masculinity to protect. Without men around to protect the women and the children they bare, then breast feeding itself is jeopordised into as Bevan describes an anemic tolerence for anyhting just so long as noone overturns the cart.

Yes: the Guardianship Act has been repealed and the oversite was genuine where its mistake on my part is costly and I have to go over what I have said agina, only this time re-explaining it even if having explained it in other posts prior. This is the tiring component as Stephen is my witness. You all think you are entitled to an opinion while the children men are bound to protect for male functionality are being abused for the removal of legal necessity around that function. What I am telling everyone who for whatever reason demands that they don’t have to listen is that what they are oppposing for its damage on them was constituted illegally and this is proved. “I’m sorry Benjamin – I don’t have to get any wood. Why should I listen to you? – you cannot make me!”

So back to the reformation of the Guardianship Act – (they couldn’t keep the same name because its modification is an advance on the point I raise).

I am asking you to go to the COC ACt 2004 s.15. “ANY” form of guardianship is modeled for the words on the inalienable as natural rights of the parent. They cannot remove this yet the legisalation is such its advance. The same applies with our land laws and the inalianable (or their words unextinguishable) lands rights of the indigenous people. IN my words as recognisably representable under the Human Rights Act to alienate the parent as we see (and which you directly) recognise as being a practice in acceptance through our administrative regimes is a direct unlawful discrimination against children. It is an indirect discrimination against fatherhood.

Before I elaborate on the method to verify the potency of this argument I’ll introduce from my submission to teh Court of Appeal the instrument that every disafeected indicvidual or group should observe with absolute comprehension. If in NZ you want to call yourself a victim and then thereby victimised, it is because you are being treated differently from any other person where why you are being victimised is because your behaviour is consistent with any particular section or subsection of the Human Rights Act.

We use the term victim in teh court willy nilly – because the judge has the jurisdiction to determine a victim. But being victimised is a legal term. Go to s.66 of the HRA.

So what you need is discrimination in order to prove you are victimised. The Violence Intervention Programme is a direct unlawful discrimination. Its been done by the administration. I have tabled a complaint and I need more. You have one of the best minds I have met: yet as well you too are of this mind that the direct challenge against the administration isn’t the way to go and we should skirt the issue by dealing with our own situations and our own practice at getting time with our young. Your wrong. And continue so to be wrong.

In regards to this difference between us, where we have discussed our different approaches and the test to see which one is the better to approach an end that reaches justice (both of us are directly abused and disaffected by Judge Mather) I ask you again to reconsider your approach.

Read what I have said. Once we have complaints of substance in with the Commission, if the Commission reject that complaint on the strength of their ability to sidestep our evidence enacts the power of defence by victimsation s.66.

As you know and have protested before of my writing I am long winded – yet I am saying things Dave not that are wrong but that everyone is too frightened to face. If you put in a complaint, others might. If Bevan and you put in a complaint (hopefully others as well) then I will withdraw mine.

I don’t know if you want to believe me when I say it is better for everyone if I withdraw my complaint. It is. I won’t unless there is a replacement of substance.

Read the legislation, now that you recognise that guardianship has been replaced wit a plastic coc.

Should a mother be allowed to determine the age at which a child stops feeding. Should that be 6 months 9 months 12 months 18 moths 3 years? Should mothers just keep feeding until the child stops? Does this decision belong to the mother the child or the state?

Actually Benjamin,
My decision not to collaborate with you is much bigger than you make out. Having to put up with belittling characterisation every time I disagree with you is onerous.
I’m afraid you won’t take folks with you by intellectually bullying them.
If you’d bothered to ask I could also have told you I’m making space for others to come through as my interest lies elsewhere and I trust others will be self inteested enough to take up the slack.
I’m even seriously thinking of withdrawing from MENZ entirely.
I’ve contributed lots regularly over the last 5 years.

Stephen has abandoned the discussion where he feels I am being rude to him…
…Just as has Scrap. Good luck they say, wounded and retired. Sad, is what I think. There are no men left.

Well done Benjamin. You’ve chased off the lesser men. I may soon be joining their ranks as well.

But your analysis isn’t quite correct. It’s a big world with a lot on offer to attract our attention and time.

However you see yourself in your own life, on this site you are first and foremost a writer. People choose to visit this site of their own volition to read. Not all are interested in activism, and very few want to hit the streets. None want to be harangued or have their judgement and courage scorned.

Cultivating a strong readership is what websites like this are for. Out of every 100 people who drop by, maybe only 1 will go on to do something truly significant. Neither I nor you know what that special quality is that turns a person from spectator to leader or engaged follower, but it’s obvious that the more people this site attracts, the greater the influence of those who write here.

There are many tips available on the web that give good advice on effective writing. You obviously have the intelligence and tenacity to master the craft. The figure on the top right of this page that tells how many visitors have been here, is the figure that matters most. Get that figure up, and the written word starts to have bite. Let it drop, and all the passion in the world expended on posting here is wasted.

I am not a writer Rob. or am I a politician. I am not a lawyer. Nor if I was a writer would aspire to be a journalist and the last thing I could possibly pretend so to be if I were in competition for numbers is an academic.

Your point is clean. Yet it is the same point you have pursued previously, yet after a necessity so to defend you have become more consice saying what it is you want to say. This will come to an end where you predict that you will abandon the site. Its new philosophy if governed by the competitive streak you emphasis distasteful, tedious and boring. Picking up the numbers slow and steady is the way. It is about reading to get traction and reading comes from good writing.

The Tui billboards we have here are a calling “tui, tui, tuiau”. You’re squeemish. The brutality of a man’s suicide is not enough to shake you from such complacency and comfort. The thought of a fellow dad’s brains plastered all over a historic beach blood soaking away, justified, like mortar to brick not enough to coerce you from your argument where these men die in pain needing only their brethren to honour their dignity. You live in the real world of capitalism where arguments are translucent, virtual to the throw by cognitive luxury and how it disaffects ones soul. That’s what I am talking about. The soul.

I am wounding no one. In our apathy and because of its expanse we hurt our offspring. If we want this to stop we have to stop it. And there are only a few of us left to stand on the beaches as time evolves its imprint to ever, ever forget.

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